Cecil Sinclair was going to be honored with a nice funeral service until the Radical Right Wing Christian Cleric in charge found out he was gay. Jesus would have accepted Cecil, but not these folks who claim to be his followers.

As part of the conference, both leaders were quizzed extensively about their beliefs, and - sadly, but unsurprisingly - both stressed their "Christian" links. In fact, they tried to outdo each other in their bids to win the "Christian" vote - Howard by announcing a clean-up of the internet that will involve filters at both user and server ends as well as more money for the Federal Police, and Rudd by pledging to have "family impact" statements prepared before every cabinet decision.

(It should be noted that the "family impact" statement is the favourite platform of Family First, the political party with notorious links to the Assemblies of God.)

The media here is reporting it as being about the "Christian" vote, throwing around the latest Census figures that show approximately 75% of respondents identified as Christian. Even leaving aside the fact that those Census figures include every denomination that even remotely identifies as Christian, what the media have completely failed to do is any research whatsoever.

Five minutes' digging on Google found this on the Australian Christian Lobby :

While carefully claiming a non-denominational standpoint, they make it very clear that "our source of truth and the justification for a position on a single issue will be based on the character of God and by critical analysis in relation to natural and special revelation (the Bible)." (my italics) Dissent is discouraged, and anyone with a problem dealing with that is referred to the relevant state office. They even have a justification for not using overtly "Christian" language - people who aren't believers won't understand, so they encourage members to use non-biblical language even though that is the sole criterion for their position on any given issue.

The Managing Director's message makes it clear that the issues with which they are most concerned are same-sex marriage, "sanctity of life" (abortion and euthanasia), internet pornography, radical Islam and removal of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

It also mentions four organisations as representative of those to which it "tithes". Linda's House of Hope is a Catholic refuge for abused sex workers. Jesus : All About Life is connected to the Bible Society, and almost impossible to penetrate. The Fatherhood Foundation smells very, very bad. Again, it trumpets its non-denominational status, but language in its beliefs statement concentrates on the pre-eminence of the father in the home, the "importance" of a father to unborn children, the "spiritual and natural" act of conception, heterosexuality as being the only good environment for a child, etc. There's an appeal to the Constitution's preamble, which mentions God, as support for the idea that the Australian state should be governed along "Judaeo-Christian" (their term) lines - starting with the Ten Commandments. They hang a lot on the words of a guy called Brian Molitor from the Malachi Global Foundation, whose site is nigh on impenetrable but has the same stink to it.

Finally, AIDS Hope for Africa (SIM), which is actually Samaritan Strategy Africa. The mission statement here is blatantly Dominionist - kingdom of God on earth, biblical law in government, Bible as "infallible word of God", and the work of "Satan" in distorting people's view of the "truth". Their work is primarily aimed at establishing churches throughout Africa - bugger all about AIDS. They, in turn, list the World Evangelical Alliance as one of their partners.

The point here is that the ACL, itself suspiciously Dominionist, and linked with overtly Dominionist groups, has just successfully set itself up as representative of the "Christian" vote in Australia. They've gotten away with it, too, because the politicians are more interested in kissing ass than figuring out whose ass they're kissing - and because the media are too goddamned lazy to do some basic research.

As I was reading up on some things near and dear to the topic of fighting dominionism, some questions (finally) occurred to me.

I live in Lubbock, Texas, at last report the second most conservative city in America. Even so, I have no direct experience with dominionists here. Conservative Christians, yes, many of whom are conservative even to the point of being unreasonable, stupid, short-sighted, or even ill-intentioned on the small scale (this last is very rare in my experience here), but not dominionists of the kind I see described here. The primary religion is protestant Christian, the city is overwhelmingly "red" on social and economic issues, the war, and anything else that touches politics. Now, obviously, conservative Christianity is not by-deffinition dominionism by itself, but the tenets are inarguably close on most things. My question is, why am I seeing so little actual dominionism in this city? If I were a dominionist leader, I would want to solidify my hold on all the credibility and safety in numbers I could get my hands on, so why not reap the harvest here where it is so obviously ripe and gain the benefit from it? What do they have to gain by staying away, or lose by coming here and steeplejacking? Is there something about Lubbock or the people here that makes them resistant to the idea, even though they are so close to dominionism in their own beliefs? Are Lubbock Christians in the throes of a Texan-individualistic "dominionism of one" kick?Or, am I simply missing some vital detail that would tell me dominionism has already "been and gone" here? If that is the case, why do I not see dominionism's marks on the churches I've been to here?If dominionism hasn't come here already, how might I be able to tell they intend to, at some future time, or are planning to in the near future? Or is that not even how it works? What do I watch for in my own church to tell if there is a movement toward dominionism?

I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions here, but with any luck I've been clear on exactly what is confusing me about my own city.

EDIT: Wow. The city's own website turns up a bunch of megachurches. I'm examining their web-pages, and many appear to be of an at least mildly dominionist bent. I've just been going to the "wrong" churches to have spotted them. But why then aren't they steeplejacking the independant churches? Or, how would I know if they intend to?